1. Field of the Invention
Exemplary aspects of the present invention relate to an image forming apparatus, and more particularly, to an image forming apparatus including a unit detachably attached to the image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Related-art image forming apparatuses, such as copiers, facsimile machines, printers, or multifunction printers having at least one of copying, printing, scanning, and facsimile functions, typically form an image on a recording medium (e.g., a sheet) according to image data using electrophotography. Thus, for example, a charger uniformly charges a surface of a photoconductor; an optical writer emits a light beam onto the charged surface of the photoconductor to form an electrostatic latent image on the photoconductor according to the image data; a development device supplies toner particles to the electrostatic latent image formed on the photoconductor to make the electrostatic latent image visible as a toner image; the toner image is directly transferred from the photoconductor onto a recording medium or is indirectly transferred from the photoconductor onto a recording medium via an intermediate transfer belt; a cleaner then cleans the surface of the photoconductor after the toner image is transferred from the photoconductor onto the recording medium; finally, a fixing device applies heat and pressure to the recording medium bearing the toner image to fix the toner image on the recording medium, thus forming the image on the recording medium.
In such image forming apparatuses, when the photoconductor and an intermediate transfer unit including the intermediate transfer belt wound around a plurality of support rollers reach the end of their life, a user removes the photoconductor and the intermediate transfer unit through openings provided in a front housing panel of the image forming apparatus in an axial direction of the photoconductor and the plurality of support rollers to replace the photoconductor and the intermediate transfer unit with new ones, respectively. Specifically, the front housing panel of the image forming apparatus includes one opening through which the photoconductor is attached to and detached from the image forming apparatus and another opening though which the intermediate transfer unit is attached to and detached from the image forming apparatus. However, the inclusion of such openings may weaken the front housing panel.
To address this, the front housing panel of the image forming apparatus may include one opening through which the photoconductor is attached to and detached from the image forming apparatus while another opening through which the intermediate transfer unit is attached to and detached from the image forming apparatus is formed in a side housing panel of the image forming apparatus. With such a configuration, for example, the photoconductor is inserted into and removed from the image forming apparatus through the opening of the front housing panel in the axial direction of the photoconductor whereas the intermediate transfer unit is inserted into and removed from the image forming apparatus through the opening of the side housing panel in a direction perpendicular to the axial direction of the photoconductor or the plurality of support rollers.
At the same time, however, the basic architecture of the image forming apparatus makes such replacement somewhat difficult. That is, when the photoconductor and the intermediate transfer unit are set in the image forming apparatus to perform an image forming operation, a transfer roller provided inside a loop formed by the intermediate transfer belt of the intermediate transfer unit is pressed against the photoconductor via the intermediate transfer belt. When the photoconductor or the intermediate transfer unit is attached to and detached from the image forming apparatus while the photoconductor and the transfer roller nip the intermediate transfer belt, the surface of the photoconductor slides over the surface of the intermediate transfer belt. Accordingly, the surfaces of the photoconductor and the intermediate transfer belt may be damaged during replacement.
To address this, a moving mechanism for moving the transfer roller with respect to the photoconductor and a lever for moving the moving mechanism may be provided on the intermediate transfer unit. For example, when the photoconductor or the intermediate transfer unit is attached to and detached from the image forming apparatus, the user rotates the lever to move the moving mechanism so that the moving mechanism separates the transfer roller from the photoconductor. Accordingly, the surface of the photoconductor does not contact the surface of the intermediate transfer belt, thereby minimizing any damage to the surfaces of both the photoconductor and the intermediate transfer belt.
The lever operated by the user is provided on the intermediate transfer unit in such a manner that the lever protrudes from the front housing panel of the image forming apparatus toward the user to make the lever more accessible to the user. Accordingly, an opening through which the lever protrudes toward the user is provided in the front housing panel of the image forming apparatus. The opening needs to be large enough to accommodate a range of motion or orbit of the rotating lever so that the lever can be operated without interfering with the front housing panel of the image forming apparatus. However, an opening of that size can structurally weaken the front housing panel of the image forming apparatus.